Supporters of farmland preservation exulted when Garrad Marsh defeated Brad Hawn and Bill Zoslocki in last year’s race for Mayor of Modesto. Marsh’s victory was doubly sweet because it came after Mike Zagaris and George Petrulakis publicly endorsed Hawn. Zagaris and Petrulakis have long been associated with pro-growth policies that resist attempts to protect farmland by mitigation, urban boundaries, or other means. Given Marsh’s long history of work for farmland […]
Politics
Valley Residents Facing Death by Dogma
Over a decade ago, when newly-elected Mayor Carmen Sabatino proposed a half cent sales tax for road maintenance and repair in Modesto he was met with a storm of protest. Despite the controversy, no one questioned the sorry state of our roads. The road tax has since been championed both by former Stanislaus County Supervisor Jeff Grover and current Supervisor Vito Chiesa. Again, no one questions the sorry state of […]
Inside The Modesto City Council: City Employees and CalPERS, by Bruce Frohman
News item from the Modesto Bee: Cost for the City of Modesto to leave CalPERS: $1 Billion plus. A Rosy Prediction of Early Last Decade In the early 2000’s, the Modesto City Council reviewed an analysis of the fiscal integrity of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, otherwise known as CalPERS. The presentation was made in the context of proposals to lower the retirement age of public employees and/or raise […]
Kristin Olsen Leads the Parade Against Norquist Pledge
Late last October, Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen renounced the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge. Since then, a growing group of Republican senators and congressman have done the same. Though current political realities likely influenced Olsen’s decision, she didn’t wait until after the election to announce her new outlook. Like others who have seen government’s problems up close, she’s realized absolutist theories aren’t serving her constituents. When she announced her new position, […]
Did the Congressman Take a Bribe? You Be the Judge, by Bruce Frohman
Congressman Devin Nunes and Jeff Denham have both signed the Grover Norquist pledge. Both are against restoring the San Joaquin River, a project which would bring thousands of jobs to the San Joaquin Valley. Here, Bruce Frohman explores some of the dire consequences of signing the Norquist pledge. My Congressman signed a pledge to the Grover Norquist political action organization not to raise taxes under any circumstance. Grover Norquist […]
Farm Bureau Says Water Sale Illegal But Bee Won't Tell the People
July 31, the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau (SCFB) sent a letter to the Modesto Irrigation District (MID). Some ten pages in length, the letter voices strong objections to the proposed MID sale to San Francisco, and questions not only the MID’s legal authority to make the sale but also whether the MID actually has surplus water to sell. In strong language, the Farm Bureau argues that, “MID has not […]
Jeff Denham’s (Robo) Townhall Meeting, By Bruce Frohman
On August 22nd, 2012, Congressman Jeff Denham held a district wide town hall meeting, as he called it. The meeting was conducted entirely by telephone. The Mechanism of the Meeting Prior to the “meeting,” a robocall was placed throughout the district. Those who answered the phone were invited to participate in the meeting by listening and could even ask a question. Those who wanted to ask a question had […]
Senator Feinstein: Just dropping by? It’s the water, stupid!
Woody Allen has said, “Paranoia is knowing all the facts,” and the more one knows about the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) water sale to San Francisco, the more likely one is to suffer severe attacks of paranoid dementia. Back in March, we alerted readers to one of the compelling factors behind the water sale—proposed legislation by California Senator Dianne Feinstein that would make water transfers less subject to government […]
LAFCo: Your Tax Dollars at Work—For the Asphalt Empire
At every LAFCO meeting they put out a stack of pamphlets entitled “What is LAFCO?” Yeah, it’s a good question. LAFCO has three objectives: “To Encourage the Orderly Formation of Local Government Agencies,” “To PreserveAgricultural Land Resources,” and To Discourage Urban Sprawl.” And so, by their own measure, the Stanislaus LAFCO has been a failure. Our county, one of the top farm producing counties in the nation, has one of […]
LAFCo: The Developers’ Best Kept Secret
Ask a Stanislaus County resident what LAFCo is, and there’s a 99% chance you’ll draw a blank look. That same resident may lament the ongoing loss of local farmland and the blighted appearance of empty houses and brown yards but never know that there exists a local government agency charged with preserving farmland and preventing sprawl. Unfortunately, that agency has been the developers’ best kept secret. By the 1950s, the […]